


Penny For Your Thoughts

by for1dollarnameawoman



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Bittersweet, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pillow Talk, Promises, gay shit, pretty innocent, what’s better than this? Guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22182739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for1dollarnameawoman/pseuds/for1dollarnameawoman
Summary: At the end of an all too short holiday, Thomas and Richard put a stamp on what their relationship really is.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 11
Kudos: 135





	Penny For Your Thoughts

“What do you think about?” Thomas asks, combing a hand though the hair of the man pressed half against him, head on his chest and hand on his stomach. “When we’re like this?”

Richard stirs a bit underneath him in the bed the two rented for the night. He let’s out a small questioning sound as he wraps his arm a bit tighter against Thomas’ waist.

It’s how it usually goes after nights like this. In a rush to catch up in the short amount of time they are able to share together, a flurry of conversations and other activities after already being worked to death the rest of the week usually leaves the two of them dozing off by the late evening. Then, waking themselves up when the sky is still dark to get back to their posts before anyone can complain. 

It’s not often their nights off correspond, so to have a night together at all is as close to a blessing as they can manage.

Thomas continues, answering the non-question from the other man.

“When we get to hold each other like this, what goes through your head?” He asks again. “You’re always so quiet.”

Richard sighs, waking up a bit more and rolling himself slightly up to look Thomas in the eye. 

“Does it bother you?”

Thomas keeps his hand tangled in Richard’s hair to tilt his head and keep his gaze.

“Not particularly,” he says with a shrug. “Just curious. ‘Bout you.”

Richard gives a tiny smirk and chuckle in response, but there’s something a bit sad behind it. Like he wants to meet his partner’s flirtatious retorts, but he can’t quite bring himself to.

“What is it?” Thomas asks. They know each other well enough now after months of their small rendezvous to guess the true meaning behind each other’s actions. To recognize a blue feeling masked behind a smile. 

Richard resumes his position next to Thomas, not wanting him to search his face.

“Nothing that’s of concern to you.”

“But that means there is something,” Thomas tries to pry, but continues the soothing massage through Richard’s hair. Letting him know he doesn’t mean it to start an argument.

Richard doesn’t respond, instead focusing his attention on mirroring the motion of Thomas’ fingertips with his own along the bare skin of his chest. More of a distraction for himself than his partner.

After a few moments of silence, Thomas sits up, bringing Richard with him, to look at him properly, as if he can find in the back of Richard’s eyes what’s preoccupying him so much.

He lifts a hand to his cheek, lightly brushing his thumb across the side of his face.

“You know you can talk to me,” he whispers. “I want you to.”

Richard brings his own hand up to cover the one cupping his face, gently curling his fingers over it. 

He lets his eyes meet those across from him again, finding them concerned, but not unkind. 

It’s always been so easy to talk to Thomas in their letters, when he can think through his words with care before letting the man he’s come to love read his adorations... his hopes, fears, concerns. It’s all down to a science, to make sure he doesn’t step a foot out of line that might ruin all the trust they’ve formed together.

But sitting like this, actually touching Thomas while he’s asking him to bear a sliver of his soul feels terrifyingly vulnerable. What if he were to take offense, get angry, disagree with anything he were to say? He couldn’t bare to look at the disappointment on his lover’s face when he realizes he’s fallen for someone less than the perfect man he deserves.

“I...” he starts, trying to give Thomas something to work with. “I just feel... upset.”

Thomas just continues to look at him, the soothing of his thumb on his cheek coming to a stand still, but his hand continues to hold his face, locking the gaze.

“Or - or maybe upset isn’t right,” Richard continues, rushing his words out to get it over with. “Angry maybe, frustrated. I’m not quite sure if I’m being honest.”

Thomas trails his hand down his cheek, neck, and arm before their hands fall together in his lap. His thumb begins to stroke circles in Richards skin again, bringing back that comfort.

“Why?” Thomas questions slowly, his eyes still scanning the face in front of him for answers. “Is something going on?”

Richard gives a dry laugh at that. “Just the same as always I suppose.”

Thomas opens his mouth to ask what he means, but Richard cuts him off to answer the question before it’s asked.

“I know I should feel nothing but delighted and... and over the moon when I can see you, spend the night in your arms. And believe me I do, truly,” Richard says quickly to get his words out before Thomas can jump in with a rebuttal. He continues by looking down at their hands intertwined as to not see the sadness on his partner’s face. “And I know it’s silly, but another part or me is just... resentful of everyone else who gets to do it every night.”

Thomas covers Richards hand already enclosed in his own with his other hand. 

“It’s not silly,” he says in a low voice.

But Richard continues like he didn’t hear. 

“You ask me what I think when we lie together in bed. When I can finally wrap myself around you without fear of someone coming around the corner or barging in the room,” he adds, finally mustering up enough courage from his own words to look back at Thomas. “Well, I think about how utterly wrong everyone else is. How people possibly could look at us together and find anything ugly and wrong about it. How anyone could possibly imagine the way you hold me and touch me and kiss me and see nothing but sin. Because they would think of you as evil or vile and it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Thomas stood completely still, not knowing how to respond to such an aggravated yet passionate declaration of love from this man.

Once Richard started on his rant he felt he couldn’t stop. Now that the words were out and he felt like his chest was being carved out, there was no way to put its contents back inside.

“You know what else I think though?” He asked. “I think about how when you make love to me it’s exactly that. Us showing our love for each other. And when you let me lay my head on your chest I still know deep down I’m the luckiest man alive because you make the time and effort to do so. How when you hold my hand like you are just now you’re willing to make the risk of loving me. But people will never know.”

Thomas’ hand was back on his cheek, a gentle finger rubbing underneath his eye. Christ, he didn’t realize he had started to shed a tear in the thick of his little speech.

“Richard,” Thomas whispered, his face now close his lover’s. “It’s alright. I’ve felt all of it, too, at some point or another. It only makes sense, for us.”

Richard bit his lip in attempt to hold back more tears. He wasn’t exactly crying, but he didn’t mean to make himself get as emotional as all that. This was really all easier on paper.

“But you know what,” Thomas added. “I learned a while ago that I don’t need the approval of others to make myself happy. And you don’t either. We don’t. All we can do is deal with the hand we were dealt, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean it has to be upsetting. There’s a thousand different ways happiness can come about.”

Richard huffed our a breath he seemed to be holding in. 

“I know, I just... it doesn’t...” he was searching for a way to put it.

“Make it easier,” Thomas supplied.

“No.”

Thomas moved his hand from Richard’s cheek to under his chin, to lift his face to match his own.

“I will say this though,” he said. “You certainly make life a bit easier to endure.”

Richard gives a watery but sincere smile at the comment.

“I should say the same to you.”

Thomas leans in, brushing his lips chastely against Richards.

“And I can confirm everything you think about us, together I mean,” he adds, barely pulling back from the kiss. “I do love you, Richard Ellis.”

Richard’s is now the one to have his hand find his way to Thomas’ neck, pulling him back in for a deeper kiss. Like he said, a risk worth taking to show how much the man means to him.

“I love you too, Thomas,” Richard breathes against Thomas’ mouth before continuing what he started.

“But I do wish we could have what others do,” he continues when Thomas catches his breath. “I wish you could put your arm in mine when we walk down a road. Put a ring on your finger, give us a wedding, a family.”

Thomas tilts his forehead to rest on Richard’s, his hand now back to his hair, messing it thoroughly this time around.

“Me too,” Says Thomas, but fondly, his smile creeping into his voice. “I might like the thought of all that, even if it can’t be.”

Richard pulls back again, pressing a small kiss on Thomas’ cheek.

“But we can spend the rest of our time together.”

Thomas gives a short laugh. 

“You mean tonight?” He asks “Or in general?”

“The latter,” Richard answers, taking a pause to look into Thomas’ eyes before continuing. “I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’d have me.”

Thomas’ smile widens as he pulls back to give Richard’s shoulder a slight shove in jest.

“Is this a proposal, Mr Ellis?” he teases.

Richard returns the laugh in good nature, but turns serious as he reaches out to take a hold of each of Thomas’ hands in his.

“If the world was a kinder place,” he says slowly. “You might be able to take it as one.”

Thomas dwindles his smile down to smirk to  
try to match Richard’s tone, but he can’t hide the happiness it brings.

“If it were just so, I would accept.”

He leans in again to bring his lover back to a kiss, holding his face. Richard smiles into it before returning the gesture, placing a strong hand into the small of a Thomas back to bring him even closer.

“Besides,” Thomas says when Richard begins to turn his attention to his jaw, then his neck. “It’s only a word. A promise.“

Richard stops making his way down Thomas’ face, but keeps his head in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

“How do you mean?”

“I’d gladly call you my fiancé,” Thomas says. “No one here telling me I can’t is there.”

Richard grins, placing another kiss on his lover’s lips, sealing a commitment that, in another life, would come to fruition.


End file.
